


An Unexpected Arrival

by sanctum_c



Category: Serial Experiments Lain
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 18:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lain awakens close to the end of the series to something approaching reality. Something is still wrong however.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unexpected Arrival

The whirring of fans filled the darkness. She kept her eyes closed and concentrated solely on what she could hear - sounds slowly distinguishing themselves; the slight bubbling of the cooling liquid, and the faint staticy whisper of the Wired. Lain opened her eyes.

She was lying on her bed, her left arm extended out in front of her, beyond it the vague forms of the darkened room. She could feel the forms of her assorted plushies pushing against her back as she stared at her arm. She flexed her muscles, causing her fingers to curl inwards, some strange part of her faintly surprised at the reaction. She let the muscles relax, and then flexed them again, her hand responding identically. Her train of thought seemed confused and fragmented. Why did her body seem so alien? So confining? Lain pushed herself up into a sitting position, her eyes adjusting to the gloom, and she could pick out specific objects in the room.

Most of the room was occupied by the sprawling mass of her Navi, its thick cabling weaving along the across the ceiling, floor and walls, bunching and coiling together along their length. Lights winked on and off throughout the room, accompanied by the churning of coolant and periodic bursts of hot air. Slightly ahead of her lay a pool of darkened liquid, encircled by thick bundles of cables. Lain blinked slowly, taking in the sight. Memories bubbled up within her mind, the memories of the Navi's construction and extension into its current form. But there was something wrong with the memories. Some almost indefinable inconsistency seemed to jar in each. Even as the memories swirled through her, somehow, they didn't seem like hers.

She suddenly glanced down at where she'd been lying. She'd been... sleeping? Lain grew concerned at this train of thought. When had she slept before this time? What had she been doing before she had laid down? She frantically searched her memory, but could remember not remember feeling tired for weeks, her memory consumed by her searches through the Wired, facts, figures and faces rushing by her in a stream of information. New sensations coursed through her now... as strangely and inexplicably alien as her restriction within a human body.

After a moment of puzzlement, she was able to identify the yawning sensation within her torso as hunger - something she couldn't remember satiating in so long. Her mind seemed sluggish, unnaturally so. Why did everything seem so strange, and why did everything she had done recently seem so unfamiliar? She stood slowly, and wobbling on her legs, waiting a moment to gain her balance. Tentatively she took a step forward, her toes splashing into the pool of coolant, cold pulsing through her. She slowly took another step forward, her chair and the centre point of her Navi attracting her attention. Ordinarily she'd have sat down within that cluster of machinery without a second thought and entered the Wired losing herself in the ebb and flow of information.

But she couldn't ignore the needs of her body. The hunger within her nagged at her attention making concentrating on the oddities of her memory impossible. She would have to return to this mystery later. As she decided upon acquiring food above other activities, the nagging of the hunger suddenly increased dramatically, becoming almost painful. How long since she had last eaten...?

Lain cut this thought off before it went any further. Her memories and mental faculties seemed splintered and disjointed, unable to thread together recent and distant events from the past. Food, she felt sure, would help vastly, as would some kind of stimulant, caffeine or sugar from some source. Lain padded through the coolant, the temperature numbing her toes as it swirled in its pool. She was glad to reach the raised floor beside her door. Tentatively she reached out, pushing the door open and stepping into the warm gloom beyond.

Lain was surprised by the sudden drop in noise as she stepped out of her room. Compared to the constant activity there, the house seemed still as a grave, but oddly comforting in it's warm darkness. Debris was strewn all over the floor here; discarded pieces of circuitry, wires, connectors and food wrappers. Through the centre of the landing and down the stairs was a narrow clear path, which Lain inferred was the path she normally took, a memory bubbling up quickly confirming that, at least as far as her mind was concerned, this was true.

A different thought followed this one quickly, beginning to override the comforting warm Lain had experienced when she first stepped out of her room. Something was different about the house. The realisation seemed to split her thoughts in two, both raging against each other, rising in importance, before being overwhelmed by the other. Her sense of comfort from the house was abruptly usurped by the sense that something had entered here forcibly, that something was here that Lain had not permitted. But even as this thought took prominence, her utter certainty that the house was a safe haven for her reduced that other notion to seemingly motiveless paranoia.

The girl felt dizzied for a moment, leaning back against the wall, trying to clear her head as the different sensations raged crazily around her mind, the ravenous hunger she felt growing by the minute. With some difficulty she looked towards the floor, concentrating solely on the wood grain. She followed it from beside her toes to the first step of the stairs, and as it passed out of sight, pushed herself upright and took another step forward. Lain kept her gaze fixed on the stairs as she descended, a steady cascade of discarded objects swimming by at the sides of each step she she moved.

The more she walked, the more natural it seemed, her limbs seemingly eager to be used. Her pace quickened and Lain stopped tip-toeing, and began placing her feet flat on each step. Gradually she lifted her gaze up from the step, looking down into the darkened stairwell as she moved. The conflict in her mind seemed to fade slightly, but worryingly the sense of intrusion into the house had become uppermost. There was something here she felt that should not be, and it seemed as if every aspect of her consciousness was bent on resolving this mystery.

Lain had almost finished descending the stairs when she noticed it, and it dwarfed every other thought, even the hunger temporarily. Just inside the front door a rough circular area had been cleared of debris. In the centre was a box, which seemed to be covered with a camouflage pattern, similar to the one on the boxes her Navi had originally been delivered in... With a massive amount of effort, Lain wrenched her eyes from the strangely fascinating box, noticing that the front door was slightly ajar. She picked her way carefully across the cluttered floor, the box drawing her gaze effortlessly once again.

But as she neared the door, another sensation flooded through her. He attention was ripped away from the box to the outside of the door. At present this was invisible to her, but something utterly intoxicating and captivating seemed to be just beyond it. Reaching out, Lain pushed the door slightly further open. At first all she could see was the swirling curtain of rain, but as she concentrated, she began to pick out features in the twilight beyond. The towering structures of the power lines, and the almost visible pulse of electricity along them. She started for a moment, convinced she had seen a crackle of energy coil around a cable and then flit between the poles that thrust up from the ground.

Then she saw another spark - the air seemingly almost full of them as her vision adjusted. As she watched her eyes widened, following the faint tracery of an aurora hanging above the visible city. And as she watched she became aware of the true nature of the sparks and the aurora, and why the sparks seemed to jump freely too and from the sky. This was pure information - she could see it as it traversed the ether. And it beckoned to her, tempting her to step away from the house and to lose herself within it - to find all she wanted.

Another memory bubbled up out of the blackness. Arisu. The world around Lain abruptly began to darken and then lightened. Lain glanced around, uncertain of what had just occurred. She was standing in a bedroom kept neat and orderly. Binders filled with notes were neatly shelved beside text books, the desk kept clear of clutter aside from an assortment of pens and pencils in holders. In the centre of the room beside a western style bed, Lain perceived a girl; Arisu. She had her back to Lain, and appeared to be reluctantly concentrating on the computer on the low table in front of her. Arisu appeared to be talking to someone, but no sound reached Lain's ears.

An odd feeling of familiarity began to resolve itself, an unpleasant feeling seemingly beginning to coil through Lain's chest. She'd been here like this before - uninvited, and unknown until she had announced herself... an action that had proved exceptionally upsetting to Arisu. The core of this memory was vague and unclear, but the sensation it caused within Lain made her gasp involuntarily. Arisu stiffened at the sound, shivering slightly. Lain shook her head in desperation, willing this terrible feeling to go. Slowly, and with a slow-mounting feeling of horror, Arisu slowly began to look around.

Lain collapsed against the door frame breathing hard. She slowly sank to her knees, eyes fixed down in front of her, not daring for a moment to look back up to the sky and again lose herself in that strange sea. The hideous coiling feeling dissipated slightly, but did not fully leave her. She had done something terrible to Arisu, and for no reason she could coax from her memory. Shaking slightly, Lain kept her gaze low as she pulled the door closed again, giving it an extra tug so that the latch caught. A strange feeling of loss engulfed her as she cut herself off completely from that lurid sky. But as that distraction was lost to her, a new one cut through her, causing the hairs to stand up on her neck; someone was watching her.

Slowly, oh so slowly, Lain raised her head in the direction she had felt the presence. It was a tremendous effort, she neither wanted to see this watcher, or be unsure if they were really there. It was somewhere on the stairs... Lain's gaze travelled up the stairs slowly, a jolt running through her as she made eye contact. Leaning around the corner, and staring unblinkingly at her was a wizened grey form. She'd seen it before, but it had never induced the terror she felt now as she gazed helplessly into its massive, seemingly lidless black eyes. Lain tried to move further away from this stranger, finding her way blocked by the door, every second her heart beginning to pound more insistently.

Terror choked her throat, Lain feeling that she would die if that figure began to simply approach her, convinced that her legs would fail her should she try to run, and that even attempting to run would be futile - it would catch her effortlessly and her fate would be terrible. Lain's breath grew ragged, a cold sweat sweeping across her body as her body instinctively reacted to something before her brain could comprehend. She found herself flinching, her body gathering itself in preparation for a hopeless flight, before she realised she was staring at vacant staircase.

Relief flooded through her, her breath still ragged, unwilling to believe that the threat was really gone. She sat unwilling to move or breath properly, waiting with mounting dread that the figure would become visible again, and move towards her, or suddenly become visible very close to her. As time wore on, Lain realised her feelings of terror were subsiding, and that forbidding conviction she was being watched was gone. Involuntarily Lain let out a gasp of relief as the comforting warmth of the house enveloped her once more.

Lain simply sat fora while longer, almost dozing in the intoxicating feeling of comfort. But both her hunger and the irresistible lure of the box drew her attention back to the present. The box, aside from the pattern marked on the cardboard, seemed to be unmarked. Along one side, which seemed to be how it was opened, a tamper seal had been cut, seemingly with a blunt knife. Over this, and stretching the length of one side was a piece of clear tape, resealing the box. Hunger pulsed through her again. With a tremendous effort, Lain got to her feet and ripped her gaze away from the box.

She turned slowly, her mind insistent that she return and investigate the box, but her body demanding that she find some food. She forced herself to walk towards the kitchen - each step seeming torturous at first, and then becoming easier as the distance increased, the insatiable curiosity once again supplanted by the warm comfort of the house as she crossed the dining room.

The kitchen area was bathed in flickering yellow light from the open fridge. Empty wrappers and discarded bottles littered the floor around the fridge, seemingly the result of earlier foraging. Cupboards hung half-open, opened packets spilling their contents from shelves and across the kitchen surfaces. Lain picked her way carefully among the spills searching for unopened packets. At length she found a half-full jar of instant coffee and a few instant ramen pots. She filled the kettle and after setting it to boil, unable to contain her curiosity any further, returned to the hall.

Kneeling she picked the box up, feeling something slide inside as she lifted it, once again the package completely consuming her attention. Slowly she turned the box over in her hands, and found a label on the underside of the box. It was a typical manifest sticker, proclaiming the package to have originated from Tachibana Labs, as indicated by the typed letters across the top of the seal. The other sides of the box failed to give any indication to it's contents, and the small typed portion of the seal had a large diagonal black line drawn through it.

By now Lain's curiosity had become roused, and she paced back to the kitchen, pulling her attention from the box just long enough to confirm that the kettle had not yet boiled. After a brief search through the kitchen drawers, she found a sharp knife. She found her mouth going dry as she carefully pierced the tape seal with the point of the knife blade. Her curiosity was intense now; she had to know what lay within this box. Lain carefully slit along the tape, following one edge of the box. Peeling this flap back revealed another box within the first, which she carefully pulled out. Inside was a tight coil of black cable of unfamiliar design. One end terminated in a typical Navi connector, while the other was some kind of plastic clip. But as odd as this was, Lain couldn't concentrate on its oddities for the moment; her interest was inexorably drawn to what lay beneath the cable.

Placing the cable beside the box, she found two other objects; an odd device with a LCD display showing a six digit number and two prongs at one end, and a small sealed box marked with the Tachibana Labs logo. The device utterly consumed her attention. Every ten seconds a spark jumps between the two prongs and the displayed number increases by one. After five iterations however, the number begins to decrease. Lain found herself suspicious of the device; its behaviour prevented any analysis of how long it has been operating, although the pattern she has observed cannot be fixed - otherwise the number could have not reached its current value. She could not begin to fathom its function, and driven madly by curiosity, Lain reached into the box and withdrew the device.

The device was formed from two molded pieces of plastic clipped together, and it is easy for her to pull these apart. Inside is a maze of wiring and circuitry, a crazy collection of chips and components from various disparate companies. The chips are all of different sizes, but the most prominent chip has "Tachibana Labs" printed along the edge. At the opposite end of the device from the prongs is a large power supply, easily severed from the rest of the circuit. As she stared intently at the device, a spark jumped the gap between the two prongs making Lain jump. The spark had been bothering some odd analytical part of her mind. As the spark jumped the gap, she felt her attention newly redrawn to the device.

Lain slowly stretched her hand out to the device. Pausing for a second as the spark jumped between the two prongs, Lain pulled the cables running from the power supply. Immediately the LCD display darkened, and the thick warm atmosphere of the house re-engulfed Lain, before suddenly being washed away. Something that had been restricted from her had been returned, and now she could have never imagined being without it. Around her, the kitchen seemed to get brighter, and that previous mental sluggishness seemed to start melting away, replaced with crystal clarity.

As the circuit became inert, the chattering hiss of the Wired suddenly filled her ears, and the device no longer holds any kind of interest. It is inactive, and now no longer anything other than a combination of metals, silicon and plastic. Behind her the kettle finished boiling with a snap. The sensation of turning away from the device without exerting any kind of effort seems odd at first, but more normal as what appears to have been the device's effects fade.

Lain quickly makes a cup of coffee and pours boiling water into the instant ramen, naturally eager this time to investigate the second, smaller box. Like the main box, it is also sealed similarly, but this time it has not been previously opened. Aside from the Tachibana Labs logo, the box is blank, and so Lain slits the seal on this box. Nestled inside on anti-static cushioning is a single chip. Along the edges of all four sides is "Tachibana Labs" followed by a sequence of letters and numbers. The top of the chip is covered with heat sinks and tiny fans, situated around a single large connector, which seems to correspond to one end of the black cable. This is an odd detail on a chip, a connection directly from the outside world into a microchip seems completely contradictory to all the principles of computer architecture known to Lain.

The chip is substantially different to both the Psyche chip and the unnamed chip that would have overwritten her memories, and Lain is only able to deduce certain details about it. Interfacing it with the rest of her Navi would prove no great obstacle; there are a variety of areas it could easily be integrated into - but then she can't simply blindly add it to the system with no hint or idea of its use or effect within her carefully constructed computer. Taking her coffee and ramen, Lain quickly ascended the stairs, finally now seating herself before her Navi. Immediately, screens flicker into existence around her and the hissing chatter of the Wired grew louder. Lain allowed herself a smile as the sound washed over her, complemented by her music switching on and playing a bass heavy track. She paused for a moment to re-experience the feeling of the bass pulsing through her, and then stares at the numbers printed across the chip once more.

Lain closed her eyes.

The Wired swam up out of the darkness behind her eyes. The feeling of total knowledge washed through her once more, and the Wired began to respond to her presence; picking out information she has subconsciously requesting. Again Lain simply waited, experiencing this for a moment - like many others just before, it is as if she was experiencing all this for the first time after a long and undesired respite. Around her the Wired began to settle slightly, and in amongst the chatter of voices she can begin to discern individuals, and among them; Arisu. But she could not pick out Arisu's words; she was simply aware of her presence within the Wired for a maddeningly brief moment, before she is lost in amongst the constant hubbub. An insane flurry of information threatened to overwhelm her, and so Lain turned her thoughts to the chip.

The Wired shifted in response, and Lain caught sight of a fading smile in the last moment. The Cheshire Cat wannabe had begun to approach her, but seemed to have thought better of it. That was for the best as far as Lain was concerned; she wanted to work without distractions. With this thought a surface began to form underneath her feet and Lain sensed her body within the Wired.

She found herself walking down a thin white spiralling slope, both the beginning and end lost out of site in the surrounding darkness. Coiled alongside the slope is a second slope, the two forming a double helix of seemingly impossible height. As she walked, images and information from Tachibana Labs began to form, causing Lain to frown. The serial numbers stamped along the edges of the chip do not appear to be recognised by the Tachibana Labs computers. Quickly, she tried again, using different methods, and sifting through the different information that this echoed back. But still she could not find no hint or lead as to the nature of the chip. It belongs to no known design principle or manufacturing run.

Frustrated, Lain quickened her pace, moving further and further down the double helix. Abruptly, a movement below on the second spiral caught her eye and she looked down... into her own eyes. She stared in confusion into her own face, and it stared back with avid curiosity. This "Lain" is ascending the spiral she is walking on, and as she turned back towards Lain, she smiled slightly and flicked her eyes upward. Lain follows the movement, and once again found herself staring into the horribly large black eyes of a wizened grey form as it stared dispassionately down at her from its position on the second spiral.

But something is different. Unlike the encounter in her house, Lain felt no fear, no compulsion to flee. This observer is simply a creature, neither a threat nor a friend, and as such should simply be ignored. Lain returned her gaze to her ascending doppelganger, watching as she walked up her spiral and drew level with her. This second Lain did not even pause, but continued moving upwards towards the observer.

Lain dropped her gaze then, her mind racing with memories of other occasions when she has seen herself acting completely outside of her control. The first time she knew anything of it was when Arisu and the others had impossibly seen her in Cyberia. As Lain's thoughts turned to Arisu, the Wired shifted in response. The worthless information garnered from researching Tachibana Labs faded, replaced with fragments of messages that Arisu had sent to Lain and brief snatches of their conversations. She listens for a moment, remembering the things Arisu has said to her...

The spiral beneath her feet seemed to start dissolving, her thoughts of Arisu drawing her away from her search and towards her friend. Again, Arisu's room shifted into being around her, and Lain caught sight of the girl sat at her desk. Memories suddenly involuntarily welled up within Lain; memories of a similar situation when Lain gained entrance to this room in this manner before. Shock flashed through her body like an electric current. How could she have done that to her best friend? This thought abruptly lead to the dredging up of long buried memories; Arisu is or was not so much one of Lain's best friends, but one of her only friends. And this friendship had only really begun relatively recently.

Lain was stricken with grief as she noticed that Arisu is simply sat at her desk, staring ashen faced at nothing. Guilt and worry suddenly coiled nastily through Lain's chest - is this because of what she did? But that event was supposed to make Arisu happy, something Lain felt she wanted to do... to make Arisu happy would make Lain happy.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lain had continued to investigate the mystery of the chip and her previous curiosity was in no way satiated yet. The chip's serial numbers suddenly loomed large across her conscious, and abruptly she found herself descending upon the spiral once more. Her searches flitted deeper and deeper into the Wired, as she scoured everywhere for even the slightest lead, any mention, no matter how insignificant it seemed. The spiral beneath her feet became red and began to fade into the surrounding darkness. Soon she could no longer feel it beneath her feet.

Time and space seemed to suspend then. There was no past and no future, only the present and nothing to constrain her. Even her presence within the Wired seemed to fade until there was nothing but her consciousness floating in total darkness, all the information in the Wired rejected in her desperate search for information regarding the chip. Just as Lain was about to give up, the number flashed up out of the abyssal depths.

She seized upon it instantly, desperate to discern all she could from this tiny fragment of information she had at last found. But as she investigated, she at first became disappointed and then confused. She at last found the number - but it is attached to a previous search of the Wired that also failed to obtain any results. And the search was conducted by the Other Lain.

The Other Lain? was Lain's initial thought, the striking oddity of this thought stopping her for a moment. But I am Lain, she thought. Did I make this search? But I don't remember it.

Other fragments of information began to coalesce around her, and these were composed for the most part of her. Lain walking down this same spiral, doggedly pursuing a tiny fleck of information, Lain moving through disparate locations tracking the chip's identity. And it seemed that she'd found something and talked to someone... but that information would not appear. The chain of events seemed to abruptly fragment; she saw herself reaching a specific point on the spiral, meet an entity, talk with this entity and then ascend the spiral. But no record of what passed between Lain and the entity remained.

Wait. There was something briefly between the meeting and the ascending. Something easy to overlook, and she had just barely caught it. Lain concentrated, hearing a familiar voice; her own. The voice referred to itself as Lain of the Wired, and to the Lain listening as Lain of the Real World. Lain of the Wired said that she had received the package, but with the key difference that the mysterious device was not operating. Like Lain, Lain of the Wired's curiosity was roused by the chip and she had investigated the chip to the best of her abilities, and divined what she could of its use from Tachibana Labs.

But what that use was, Lain of the Wired refused to say. She said that she was willing for the chip to be used, but the final choice lay with the Lain who came after her; Lain of the Real World. Lain of the Wired's voice faded away and realisation shot through Lain; she had done all this before, but from a different view point. She had altered memory again, in this case her own, to allow her to experience events from a completely different view-point; as Lain of the Real World rather then Lain of the Wired. And now she had to make a choice.

Lain felt the spiral beneath her feet again and now found herself ascending. From all she had learned, the chip was completely different from the last chip, which would have simply overwritten her memories; this one had a substantially different use. But could she trust Lain of the Wired, even though she was simply herself from a previous time with more knowledge of the situation? Lain glanced up as she walked, sighting the observer sitting once more on a higher curve of the spiral - on the spiral she had descended.

She ignored it, her mind still occupied with this situation she seemed to have placed herself in, which seemed a very odd concept to her. In one sense she had placed herself in this situation, but the rationale and sequence of events responsible were utterly alien and unknowable. But her curiosity seemed insatiable; she wanted to know more about the chip, and with that a thought occurred to her. She could isolate a module of her Navi and place the chip in that, allowing a full investigation before it was integrated into the main system.

Lain opened her eyes. The glow of the various readouts, the hum of fans and the chatter of the Wired greeted her. She shifted and sat up from where she'd slumped, dislodging a cold cup of coffee and a pot of noodles. She watched disinterestedly as they splashed into the pool of coolant, instead looking to the chip in front of her. She closed her hand around it, rising and crossing to the bank of equipment. She began to carefully disconnect cables from a module and slowly worried free of its housing, exposing the main board.

The chip was easily added in amongst her assorted modifications to the Navi, but frustratingly the module ran no differently then before. The diagnostics revealed the presence of the chip but also made it clear it was serving no function, despite being undamaged. A burst of noise from the Wired caught her attention. It sounded like her voice, no, Lain of the Wired's voice, telling her that the chip could only work with her interaction...

Lain retrieved that black cable that had accompanied the chip, and examined it again. As she turned it it seemed to expand and break apart, more cables separating out from a single original. She dropped the spawned cables to the floor and connected one end of the black cable to the chip, still in place with the Navi module. Lain looked closely at the other end of the cable, noting the presence of tiny tins set into the plastic of the clip.

Brushing her hair aside, she gently let the clip grip onto the flesh of her ear lobe and the fine pins bite into the flesh seeking out her blood. There was a moment of pain, and then Lain turned her mind to the chip...

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn't watched Lain in ages when I wrote this but kind of like it so I never fixed some continuity errors if you actually look at the part of the series this has to occur.


End file.
